Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/759

Appendix X. 721 it with all kinds of missiles; but the valour and energy of our knights and other soldiers held it for thirty-five days, with great slaughter of the enemy, although the fort itself, in the opinion of many, was deemed tenable against so vast a force only for a few days. At length, on the 23rd of June, when we could no longer repel the attack and withstand the overwhelming number of the besiegers, the fort itself, surrounded and shut in as it was by sea and land, and deprived of all succour, was taken by the Turks, and the few survivors of our men were put to the sword. Elated by this success, they then commenced the attack on the fort and town of St. Michele, and on this newly-built town (the Bourg), especially directing it on the bastions of Castella and Lusitunia (Castile and Portugal). According to their usual custom, they began with the greatest activity, and an increased strength of artillery, to batter and breach the walls in many places. This terrible and furious attack was made by the whole of the Turkish force, equally powerful by land and sea, and then by huge engines of vast size and fearful power, throwing, day and night, stone and iron balls of from five to seven palms circumference, large enough to destroy, not only walls, but to overturn even mountains; and by their force the walls themselves were so breached in many places that it was easy to walk up them. The infidels frequently assaulted these with much noise and fury, but as often as they came on they were driven back with great defeat and loss in killed and wounded. Their leaders, both naval and military, having in vain delivered many attacks at different points with all their forces during a space of nearly four months, and having sustained great losses of their old soldiers, and all the more as winter was now drawing on, when, by the law of nations, all warfare rightly ceases, now meditated withdrawal, or rather flight, which was accelerated by the arrival of Garzia of Toledo, viceroy of Sicily, and admiral of the king of Spain’s fleet, who brought a reinforcement of 10,000 soldiers and picked men, among whom were at least 214 of our knights, and many other noble and well-born men, who, stirred by Christian piety alone, had voluntarily assembled from various parts of the world to bring us aid. You have now shortly, and in a few words, the account of the arrival and flight of the Turkish fleet, and of the victory which by God’s help we gained over it. It will be for you to consider and imagine in what a state the Order and this island now are, and would be found to be, to what poverty we arc reduced, and of how many things we are in want; and unless we are relieved by the assistance of our brethren, especially of those like yourself, as we hope and believe we shall be, we must be undone. Farewell! Malta, 9th October, l63. 47